i... hallo friends,For my CG4 Dual Axis motor drive, used on CG4-D-cells die very soon, so thought of using the chargable battery, I bought a 6volts 3.2ma Sealed lead acid battery, exactly the same size that would fit in the battery pack holder and pouch. And wired to use it directly. Is that recommended? will it be safe on the controller circuit. Will it affect the clock?thank you

When I talked with an Orion Tech guy, he said that I had to be very careful to follow the recommended voltage. He said any variation above the prescribed voltage would burn out the motor. I don't know if that's your situation, but just be careful or you might be one unhappy camper.

Hallo Bart, I checked on multimeter, the voltage is giving exactly 6volt. (equivalent to Dcells- 1.5V x 4), Is that ok?

Trev, look The battery is exactly like this, little smaller than the 4 Dcell pack. Does it give high power surge?1A fuse, or may be a voltage regulator? do you know any simple schematic diagram?see you

That battery will work. Despite what Orion told you motors are tougher than that, and that drive is very simple.
As for a regulator, they work on the principle of high voltage going in, lower regulated voltage going out, so a 6V regulator fed by a 6V source will regulate nothing, in fact, it would reduce the output voltage because of voltage drops in the regulator circuit.
Use that battery, it will be just fine. Batteries don't surge.

Unfortunately when it comes to electrical repair I call someone else. I found out the hard way when I got a surge through my HC and it fried the chip inside.
The controller is only rated for 750mA so putting a 1A fuse in line is just cheap insurance. There is some schematics posted around here somewhere on how to put a voltage regulator into the HC but you need a chip programmer and other gear that I wouldn't have a need for afterwards so I just went and got a new setup.

Just to clarify, I was using a 12v-6v stepdown transformer. When it died it blew the inline fuse and the HC, strictly using a battery you won't have a problem.

That battery will work. Despite what Orion told you motors are tougher than that, and that drive is very simple.
As for a regulator, they work on the principle of high voltage going in, lower regulated voltage going out, so a 6V regulator fed by a 6V source will regulate nothing, in fact, it would reduce the output voltage because of voltage drops in the regulator circuit.
Use that battery, it will be just fine. Batteries don't surge.

I agree with Doug for the most part, but bad things happen sometimes. One such thing could be a short somewhere and this could send a higher current than what the motor or the handset can handle. So just to play it safe, put a fuse in line with the cable.

Hallo Doug,
thank you for telling. I think I will use the 1A fuse as Trev told. Thank you Trev, I wont be using a step down transformer atall directly. I created a female jack to a stepdown charger, which will be used only for charging the battery, by removing it from the HC.
thank you Ajay, But where do I put the fuse? in line red wire or black wire? or any?

hallo denodanYes I thought of it, I would get them after searching around. But dropped the plan because they are 1.2V and 1.2 x 4 would give 4.8V , that might affect the clock drive. And 1.2 V x 5 wouldn't fit in the battery package, and don't know if that works.

Don't change the power supply for a CG-4 drive. It has no built in voltage or current protection. Your first indication of a fault is the controller will stop working. I know because I tried this and ended up replacing a drive after the controller was blown. Again, it has no internal protection against voltage or current; it works with D cells. It has non- uniform current draw, and is designed for the characteristics of D cells. And a fuse will not protect against over-voltage.

The cost of a drive will pay for many sets of D sized alkalines. Of course, after you blow your first drive, you do end up with an additional battery pack to pre-load with D cells. Convenient after learning the lesson.

When I talked with an Orion Tech guy, he said that I had to be very careful to follow the recommended voltage. He said any variation above the prescribed voltage would burn out the motor. I don't know if that's your situation, but just be careful or you might be one unhappy camper.

I want to amend what I posted above. Instead of "motor" replace the word with "drive", which includes hand controller and motor.

Upon review, I don't remember exactly which part of the drive the Orion tech guy said would burn out. All I remember is that he strongly cautioned me that "something" would burn out and render it useless.

I can not comment on the dual axis drive's voltage sensitivity, but I can give a bit of information regarding the voltages you might see from a "6 volt" sealed lead acid battery.

As with all batteries the voltage provided is not constant, the battery starts at a higher voltage when fully charged and slowly provides a lower voltage as it discharges. The rated voltage is usually what the battery will provide at about 50% charge. For lead acid batteries in general you may see values like this:

Also, while being charged and for a short time *RIGHT* after being charged the voltage could be up at 7.2volts or so, so if a lead acid battery is used and if the dual axis drive is very voltage sensitive then you might want to wait for a while after charging before connecting it.

I should say that Alkaline D-cells also show a change in voltage while discharging, I think they have an even lower voltage at full discharge too. Seems strange to me that the dual axis drive would be all THAT sensitive to voltage... A fuse as already suggested is a good idea regardless.

Don't change the power supply for a CG-4 drive. It has no built in voltage or current protection. Your first indication of a fault is the controller will stop working. I know because I tried this and ended up replacing a drive after the controller was blown. Again, it has no internal protection against voltage or current; it works with D cells. It has non- uniform current draw, and is designed for the characteristics of D cells. And a fuse will not protect against over-voltage.

The cost of a drive will pay for many sets of D sized alkalines. Of course, after you blow your first drive, you do end up with an additional battery pack to pre-load with D cells. Convenient after learning the lesson.

-Rich

Rich, although I tried attaching the sealed lead acid battery with fuse and left it on over night for almost 5 hours. It didn't heat up the drive or motor or even the battery. all worked fine. It is just the one inch by 4.5 inch battery. But now I will use the D cells, until I find something to do with it.
Bart, ok thank you for alert
Falcon, thank you for your input.. may be I will try building a voltage protection circuit. Still I will have to check if it gives voltage drop due to the regulator circuit like Dough said.

Just use the lead acid battery that you bought. The drive isn't going to be able to tell the difference between that lead acid battery or 4x D cells. As long as you don't reverse the polarity from the battery you're not going to hurt anything.

And if a 6v charged battery is at 7.2v, that voltage will drop the moment any current is drawn from it, even if its just a few uA. Besides, using alkaline primary cells is very bad for the environment and IMO should be illegal unless a recycling program is enforced.

You are pushing that voltage into the controller chip. Burning my drive left me with 2 surplus motors and a battery pouch.

The part about the motors in the other part of this thread is a red herring from someone who hasn't done it.

Your first sign of trouble will be the RA motor doesn't come on. It will be cool to the touch. If you smell the controller box carefully, you may notice a faint burnt odor. The chips are seeing the full input voltage- this is why D cell alkalines are safe and a rechargeable equivalent isn't. Again, you get no warning- she's dead the instant there's too much power at the input, and you're buying a new drive.